That aside, though, it’s a good issue. I like Wells’ take on the characters, and artist Diogenes Neves is doing solid work here. Okay, his Magma and Magik are a bit too similar, and I’ve seen flashier artwork. But he tells a good story, and does a great job with the final few pages. Wells sets up an effective mystery and makes sure to get the plot underway instead of dragging out the set-up.

The big question, of course is: if we’re not doing the junior team again, what is the premise of this book? Is it an entire series about a bunch of characters who happened to be in a series with a stronger premise 25 years ago? Is it really just a second X-Men series which happens to have a dash of nostalgia thrown in? Come to think of it, perhaps that wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

The first issue of the team’s newest incarnation is right on the money in terms of tone, direction and respect for current X-Men continuity. I especially love how well writer Zeb Wells handles the relationships between the team members; it’s obvious that they respect and actually like each other — which makes their re-teaming even more logical.

One other thing I dig about this comic is that it shows some of the more administrative aspects of being on a X-Men team. In one scene, Cannonball fills out a “roster request form.” And in another scene, we see Beast handling design and creation of the group’s uniforms. Maybe I’m the only one who gives a crap about Cyclops’ paperwork, but mundane stuff like that just makes the comic experience more “realistic” for me.

The Bad: I am not sure that we needed another mutant book. This one does not seem that much different from the others. When Marvel released Captain Britain, they made sure it was different from the other X-books.

Years ago, this story would have been a 2 or 3 parter within the regular book. Now it is just another excuse to add an X-book.

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Comments

2 Comments

David

ejulp (John)

Thumbed through it, the art was atrocious for such a “high profile” relaunch in some spots, and adequate in others…new books like this need a somewhat unique visual appraoch to set it out out form the back…thinking back to Bachalo’s approach to Generation X, this just seems sad. Lots of scene set-ups seemed especially lazy….oooohhhh bar fight cuz they’re in a bar.

I dunno, maybe it actually read well, just didn’t look all that great.